Tafadzwa Mhindurwa, 23, pleads guilty to Bendigo V/line train attack

A methed-up Bendigo thug covered in the blood of his victims believed he was a “secret agent” on a mission when he attacked a passenger of a V/Line train while high on ice. SEE THE VIDEO

A Bendigo thug believed he was a “secret agent” on a mission when he attacked members of the public with such ferocity he was arrested while covered in the blood of his victims.

Tafadzwa Mhindurwa, 23, pleaded guilty at Bendigo Magistrates’ Court to two brutal assaults in November last year.

CCTV footage captures the thug approaching a couple on the 7.52pm V/Line from Bendigo asking “aggressively” if the male victim was “Catholic”.

He followed the couple around the carriage as he continued to harass them while they tried to get away from him.

Mhindurwa then asked if the man’s glasses were prescription before “unrelentingly punching the victim to the face and head” in a sustained attack while the man’s partner screamed and begged Mhindurwa to stop, swatting at him with her umbrella.

Tafadzwa Mhindurwa, 23, pleaded guilty at Bendigo Magistrates Court to randomly attacking two men. Picture: Supplied.

Mhindurwa chased his victim into a toilet, banging on the door and screaming before robbing the woman for her umbrella and getting off at Kangaroo Flat station.

Taking off down the street, Mhindurwa randomly assaulted another man – breaking his nose and leaving him with “significant bleeding”, the court heard.

He was arrested nearby “covered in the blood of both victims”, wielding a large metal scaffolding pole when police arrived.

Magistrate Trieu Huynh said the attack on the train had left Mhindurwa’s victim with traumatic psychological injuries that “run deep” while the court heard his other victim was left living “in fear and won’t leave the house unless someone is with me”.

Tafadzwa Mhindurwa relentlessly assaulted a man on a V/line train at Bendigo. Picture: Supplied.

Mr Huynh said the video was frightening for anyone who caught public transport at night.

“I watched that and I was myself frightened,” he said.

The court heard Mhindurwa was on appeal bail at the time and charged with “very similar offending” relating to violence and robbery.

Defence lawyer Daniel Thomas said the “bizarre offending” came just hours after Mhindurwa was released from the psych ward.

Tafadzwa Mhindurwa believed he was a “secret agent” on a “secret mission” when he bashed a man on a V/line train at Bendigo, the court heard. Picture: Supplied.

Mhindurwa, who is a diagnosed paranoid scitzophrenic, had believed he was “some sort of secret agent carrying out some sort of mission”.

The defence said it was “clearly an episode of paranoid schizophrenia”.

Police prosecutor Senior Constable Paul Bush said the “extremely frightening incident” came as Mhindurwa’s violent behaviour escalated alongside a failure to comply with mental health treatment and his use of meth and cannabis – arguing his ability to rehabilitate in the community was “guarded”.

His Honour said the court was in a “conundrum” because Mhindurwa was “clearly unwell”, but there was no “evidentiary basis in the form of a psychiatric assessment” to make findings of mitigation on mental health grounds.

“This gentleman clearly needs ongoing supervision in the community moving forward because of those mental health issues … (that) need to be addressed properly,” he said.

Mhindurwa faces a maximum sentence of five years behind bars and has been remanded in custody since his arrest.

Mr Huynh said “imprisonment is the oily disposition for the court”, and the only question was how long.

Mr Huynh adjourned the case to August while a presentence report was prepared, looking into Mhindurwa’s mental health conditions and the role they played in the offending.